Due to some behind-the-scenes mixups, another band was scheduled over Fakeproject.

Fakeproject will not be performing at the Aquarium on February 19th.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled behavioral programming.

I’ve had my share of police encounters, here and abroad, public and private. When I say “police”, I mean all watchful eyes with agendas. I lump in security guards and enforcers of all kinds, including well-meaning housewives with mobile phones, minivans, and too much time on their hands “keeping an eye on things”.

Years ago my friend CM was subjected to the brutality of the Chicago police, and spent a night “detained” but not arrested. Around that time, there was an interesting video posted to the web from an independent videographer which demonstrates not only the “tricks” authorities use to get you to turn off the camera, but the things one can say to fend them off. (Windows Media, 7 minutes, 18mb)While I don’t recommend making smart-assed comments as this narrator does, I do recommend watching this video. Pay attention to the tactics of both sides. Put yourself in the photographer’s shoes and see if you wouldn’t buckle.

I am hosting the video here because I was unable to locate it on the web, despite numerous searches over the last few years. I found it on a decaying CDROM in a bin of old junk.

There are a few other sites documenting your rights as a photographer. The classic is Bert. P Krages “The Photographer’s Right. Know it. There’s another worth reading: Andrew Kantor’s Legal Rights of Photographers.

I have a few police officer friends, here (NL), Germany (WM), and Russia (MA). They are not the subject of this post, I respect them and their work.

Announcement: Fakeproject (Daniel Reetz and Shaun Fort) will be playing a show at the Aquarium in Fargo, February 19th, 2008.

We will be playing with Holy Fuck and A Place To Bury Strangers.

It is going to be a killer show. Bring your friends.

2007:

Began graduate studies in the CVN at NDSU in Minard Hall.
Bought a mill and taught myself to use it.
Built a “DOF adapter” for M42-mount lenses.
Modified a DV camera for use with the adapter.
Built an Arca-Swiss compatible camera mount.
Cut my own Arca-Swiss plates.
Built a camera rotator.
Built a camera stabilizer.
Built a prototype tactile stimulator for attention research.
Built a GPS hotshoe mount.
Built a laser rack for vision research.
Built a prototype light switching system for bass drum pedals.
Built a parabolic WiFi antenna from an old heater.
Built a crude WiFi antenna from a baking pan (Pantenna!).
Machined a miniature revolver cylinder as a gift.
Wrote my first serious software program. (Results).
Developed a method to preserve difficult-to-photograph varnished architectural paintings.
Developed a site-specific installation for the Plains Art Museum.
Spent the best part of the summer with Meg Holle.
Built a dual-camera hidden camera bag.
Developed and performed an audio/video performance at the Plains Art Museum.
Interviewed for the MSUM Arts and Humanities Newsletter.
Interviewed for NDSU Magazine (thanks Laura!).
Bought a new bike and rode the hell out of it.
Modified my camera bag.
Celebrated Halloween, my favorite holiday.
Spent some time with the first woman I ever loved.
Learned my first Mandarin words.
Caught a bat in the hallway.
Created Fight Christmas With Guns!
Released the Graf Paper coloring book.
Released a collection of Soviet Movie Posters.
Released a collection of Soviet Food Advertisements.
Received 4 stitches, 2L of intravenous saline, and a $1500 bill from MeritCare.
Modified a miniature GPS receiver and:
Built a single-transistor camera-GPS interface.
Planted a garden of weeds, which subsequently reproduced.
Spent a number of evenings photographing with Mr. Fort.
Presented at the Great Plains Tech Expo.
Visited Murphy’s Surplus in El Cajon.
Fixed a PowerShot SD630 and helped a bit with porting CHDK onto it.
Wrote an NSF GRFP Application on HDR Imaging and Vision.
Helped with various translations at IATE.
Drank beer with friends.
Attended numerous conferences, including:
SIGGRAPH 2007 (San Diego).
Vision Sciences Society (Sarasota, Florida).
RADIANCE (Minneapolis).

This isn’t everything, by any means. These are the things I’ve finished, or that didn’t need finishing. Much remains ongoing.

I am satisfied with what I’ve done, but it’s crystal clear to me that I’m tool-making. By that, I mean developing the means to do things. This is a good list, but it’s a list of potential, of gearing up for more and better bigger plans than tooling. I haven’t wasted any time, and I’m not yet dead. The next step is to shift my focus from the instruments to the task at hand. 2008 will be the year of wrestling hard problems.

Be patient with me as I may not be very talkative.

Dear Friend of the Corporation,

I am writing you today to announce the birth of a new Project: “Fight Christmas With Guns!”. Previously, the War On Christmas was merely a fiction fondly dreamed by far-right flunkies. But I’m no faker — I just can’t stand living in an unreality of their construction. So I had to make it real. And give it a web-shop.

http://www.fightchristmaswithguns.com/

Regards,
Daniel Reetz
The Fakeproject Corporation of America.
http://www.fakeproject.com
http://www.danreetz.com
http://www.fightchristmaswithguns.com/

Recently, I had the singular pleasure of being interviewed by Laura McDaniel, for NDSU Magazine. I am really pleased with the way the interview turned out, and my artwork is featured on the cover.

The entire issue (Fall 2007 Vol. 8, No. 1) is available online.

Pierre Gorgull wrote a great sample manipulation toy for the Nintendo DS — “Protein: DScratch“. I was ready to sell my DS lite, but this software changed my mind. It is that good.

I created three demo samples for his software, and they’re included in the latest release. Enjoy!

I recently posted about a Sputnik music box. Unfortunately, I got some of it wrong. Fortunately, I have great friends with keen eyes and quick brains. Женя says:

I just wandered on your blog today and heard the wonderful tinkling of the Sputnik music box.
I just wanted to let you know though that the melody it’s playing is not “The Internationale”.
It’s a song called Широка страна моя родная, или Песня о Родине.

Вот тут можешь послушатъ одну версию…

А Интернационал звучит вот как.

Женя.

Thanks for that, Женя. Miss you.

Fedex leaves a pickup notice for the USPS. Sorry you were out.

Speaking of being out, I will be unavailable for personal contact by phone or email until early November. Feel free leave a message, but I will not return anything until further notice.

In 2001, the Plains Art Museum held an exhibition called “Darker Shades of Red“, which was an exhibit of Soviet propaganda and state-sponsored social realist painting. Among the artifacts was this object, which was under glass. It is a small music box in the shape of the Sputnik satellite. In both scenarios (on the web and in the museum) the music/sound remained a mystery- described only in text. I was immediately curious about what it sounded like — what tune creaked forth from the crazed plastic base. In 2005, I got in touch with the NASM curator and asked for a recording of the Sputnik music box. If you’d like to hear what I’d been waiting to hear for three years, here ’tis:

http://danreetz.com/sputnik/Sputnikmusicbox_.mp3

The tune is “Le Internationale” and the beeps are, you guessed it, the beeps of Sputnik. Which may be the most magical implementation of a music box mechanism, ever. Even more interesting is how the tune is out of tune, so that the Sputnik notes are dead on.

Curious about what the real Sputnik sounded like?

Thank you, Cathleen S. Lewis, for taking the time to make that sound available.